Was F1 surviving on 'a wing and a prayer'?

A substantial drop in teams' income and seemingly slow progress in other key areas rang alarm bells at the end of Liberty Media's first year in charge. But its chief argues that what it inherited from Bernie Ecclestone was much worse than people realise

The recent publication of the F1 Group's full financial results for 2017 gave us our first proper opportunity to judge the performance of Formula 1's new owner. And it was hard to miss the standout numbers - the income distributed among the 10 teams fell by 5% from $966million in 2016 to $919m last season.

This trend was hardly a surprise, and it had been signalled some time ago. But the official fourth quarter figures provided the definitive picture for the full year. So can we conclude that Liberty has done a poor job for its key partners?